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About abusive situations.
Jul. 17th, 2011 09:00 pmThis excellent blog post made the rounds today.
I've done a lot of processing of my experiences in my youth and it's really simple: it was an abusive environment and I was abused in multiple ways. Physical ("spankings" that were anything but,) emotional (constantly being told I was worthless, untrustworthy, etc.,) and control (particularly financial, though also poisoning others against me* and prohibiting me from having my own support network) were all employed. It was only early February of 2009 that I was, for the first time in my life, fully free of them in all ways. Until that time I had always had some dependency.
People wonder why and most seem incapable of understanding the answer. It even took me a long time to be able to understand. It began to dawn on me when I read something on the old NoKidding! web board, "our families are so good at pushing our buttons because they installed them."
I had been conditioned to believe that I could not survive being independent of them, particularly my father. He spent 20 years conditioning me in that way, making daily situations to reinforce it, and I consider it done fairly well that it took me only about half that time to break free from it. For 20 years I was placed in situations designed to cause me to fail so he could "rescue" me, berating me all the way about how stupid and incapable I was. If I managed to do everything right then the goalposts were moved and it was that I had failed to do something he would insist he had told me but never had (that was probably an effort to make me distrust and/or disbelieve my own memories.)
One of my most clear memories was Christmas Day 1993. I had proposed to my ex-fiancee and she said yes. I walked into the milkhouse (part of a dairy barn where the bulk tank and milking equipment is kept) an told my father that I was engaged. He asked me, "is she going to do the smart thing and break-up with you?" and walked out.
I realize that a lot of what he did was passing on what was done to him. His sister had been by far the preferred child by his parents. But that only explains, it does not excuse. In the same way I am responsible for my own actions he was responsible for his.
I remember this song being played on the radio in the 1990s. It meant so much to me; still does.
* Many people in my extended family still won't have anything to do with me because of whatever he told them.
I've done a lot of processing of my experiences in my youth and it's really simple: it was an abusive environment and I was abused in multiple ways. Physical ("spankings" that were anything but,) emotional (constantly being told I was worthless, untrustworthy, etc.,) and control (particularly financial, though also poisoning others against me* and prohibiting me from having my own support network) were all employed. It was only early February of 2009 that I was, for the first time in my life, fully free of them in all ways. Until that time I had always had some dependency.
People wonder why and most seem incapable of understanding the answer. It even took me a long time to be able to understand. It began to dawn on me when I read something on the old NoKidding! web board, "our families are so good at pushing our buttons because they installed them."
I had been conditioned to believe that I could not survive being independent of them, particularly my father. He spent 20 years conditioning me in that way, making daily situations to reinforce it, and I consider it done fairly well that it took me only about half that time to break free from it. For 20 years I was placed in situations designed to cause me to fail so he could "rescue" me, berating me all the way about how stupid and incapable I was. If I managed to do everything right then the goalposts were moved and it was that I had failed to do something he would insist he had told me but never had (that was probably an effort to make me distrust and/or disbelieve my own memories.)
One of my most clear memories was Christmas Day 1993. I had proposed to my ex-fiancee and she said yes. I walked into the milkhouse (part of a dairy barn where the bulk tank and milking equipment is kept) an told my father that I was engaged. He asked me, "is she going to do the smart thing and break-up with you?" and walked out.
I realize that a lot of what he did was passing on what was done to him. His sister had been by far the preferred child by his parents. But that only explains, it does not excuse. In the same way I am responsible for my own actions he was responsible for his.
I remember this song being played on the radio in the 1990s. It meant so much to me; still does.
* Many people in my extended family still won't have anything to do with me because of whatever he told them.
